Jhapa. A video circulating on social media with the claim that a Ranke rally was taken out in Jhapa demanding ‘return our votes’ against Prime Minister Balendra Shah has been found to be misleading. It has been revealed that the video is not of the latest incident in Jhapa but of the squatters’ agitation that took place in Dharan five months ago. <\/p>\n
In recent times, there has been widespread criticism from political circles and social media for various decisions and activities of the government led by Prime Minister Balendra Shah. <\/p>\n
In the midst of this political atmosphere, the protesters carrying torches chanting slogans of ‘Give back our votes’ has been publicized as a recent protest in Jhapa. <\/p>\n
However, it has been found that there is no match between the propaganda on social media and the reality of the video. The presentation of the scene of the squatter agitation in Dharan five months ago with the current political developments has created confusion among the general public. The publicity of the video without understanding the real time, place and context has further spread misinformation. <\/p>\n
Old video, new event cover<\/strong><\/p>\n The video on social media has been presented as an incident of public anger against Prime Minister Balen in Jhapa and voters taking to the streets demanding the return of votes. The night scenes, rallies and sloganeering seen in the video have raised more concerns about the reality of the incident. <\/p>\n But the reality of the video is said to be related to the squatters’ agitation that took place in Dharan five months ago. The fact that the video of the old incident is being publicized in connection with the current political situation has increased the risk of creating a wrong impression about the incident. <\/p>\n Just because a video or picture goes viral on social media does not mean that its time and context are current. The tendency to present old scenes as a cover for new events has misled the citizens and has also raised questions about the credibility of the information spread on social media. <\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n Surendra Bhandari, an active journalist from Jhapa, clarified that the video circulating on social media is old. He said that he has been receiving continuous calls since morning about the authenticity of the video and he has been informing various people that the video is old. <\/p>\n “I have been shocked to get a call about the video since morning. I am convinced that it is an old video,” Bhandari said. <\/p>\n According to him, the publicity being done on social media without understanding the reality of the video has created unnecessary confusion. After the old video was linked to the current events, many people are considering it real and asking for information. <\/p>\n Question on mainstream media <\/strong><\/p>\n Bhandari has commented that even the mainstream media of Nepal has failed in the question of verifying the facts. He said that after the news was published in established online media, the trend of social media users taking screenshots and reposting them considering it as official has increased. <\/p>\n Bhandari said, “The video has become more viral after the trend of screenshotting and posting it on social media after the news came out in the popular media.” <\/p>\n The news of the media is considered comparatively credible by the public. On the basis of this belief, when the screenshot of the news is spread on social media, it seems that it gives more authenticity to the content. But if the basic facts of the news are wrong, then there is a risk that its impact will be even wider. <\/p>\n In the competition to chase viral content, disseminating news without verifying the date, location and actual context of the video is a serious weakness of journalism. The credibility of the facts is more important than the speed and popularity of the news. Disseminating unverified content as news can not only disseminate misinformation to the citizens but also undermine the trust in the media. <\/p>\n News removed, but screenshot still goes viral <\/strong><\/p>\n Some media outlets, which had published news about the viral video, later removed the content from their online and social media. However, the screenshots taken after the news was published have been continuously circulating through various mediums. <\/p>\n This shows how challenging it is to control misinformation in digital media. A fake news can reach thousands of people in a short time <\/p>\n It can be reached. But the information that has been corrected will not reach everyone as fast as the content that has been spread before. <\/p>\n Merely removing the news is not enough. In the event of the publication of false information, the media should clearly correct it, make the truth public and take responsibility to free the readers from the confusion. Although the content preserved in the screenshot cannot be removed, false propaganda can be stopped by making its truth public. <\/p>\n Social media users are also responsible <\/strong><\/p>\n Social media has now become an effective medium of information exchange. But through this medium, unconfirmed news, old videos, and misreferenced content are also spreading rapidly. <\/p>\n Before sharing any content, it is necessary to get information about its source, date, location, and context. Especially since videos and news related to political topics can influence public opinion, it is more sensitive to publicize without verifying the facts. <\/p>\n The video with the slogan ‘Give back our vote’ has been publicized about the recent Ranke rally against Prime Minister Balen in Jhapa despite the squatters’ agitation that took place in Dharan five months ago. <\/p>\n Credibility of journalism depends on facts<\/strong><\/p>\n Journalism does not mean making news as it is, the content that goes viral on social media. It is the basic responsibility of the media to verify the truth of the news, understand the background of the incident, and give accurate information to the readers. <\/p>\n In the race to chase viral content, ignoring fact-checking can make the media itself a medium to spread misinformation. Therefore, it is imperative to verify the authenticity of the video, the time, place and source of the incident before publishing the news. <\/p>\n The video of the squatters’ agitation that took place five months ago has been publicized as the current political event in Jhapa, which has pointed out the need for not only the social media users but also the media to be more responsible and alert.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jhapa. A video circulating on social media with the claim that a Ranke rally was taken out in Jhapa demanding ‘return our votes’ against Prime Minister Balendra Shah has been found to be misleading. It has been revealed that the video is not of the latest incident in Jhapa but of the squatters’ agitation thatContinue reading “Claim that Ranke rally was taken out against PM Balen demanding ‘return our votes’ is misleading”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":123617,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[105,147],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-123604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-top-breaking-en","category-samachar-en"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/balen.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123604"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123618,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123604\/revisions\/123618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media\/123617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arthakhabar.com\/ak_api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}